More than one ton of prescription drugs were collected by law-enforcement in Orlando during a "take-back" day last month, the Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday. The drugs were collected at multiple sites during a no-questions-asked, four-hour period Sept. 25. Statewide, 4 1/2 tons of prescription drugs were collected from more than 140 locations. "The proper destruction of tons of unwanted, unused drugs results in a safer medicine cabinet and a cleaner environment," said Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent In Charge of the DEA's Miami division.

MOUNT DORA - Gifts come in small and large packages, but rarely do they require an 18-wheeler to deliver them. Lake Cares Food Pantry recently received about 32,000 pounds - 41 pallets - of almonds as a donation from Star Distribution Systems of Plant City. It was the largest donation the pantry has received since 20,000 pounds of WhoNu? cookies were donated by the same company two years ago. The pantry learned of the donation just a couple of days prior to delivery, and it notified other food pantries, the Lake schools' homeless liaison and area soup kitchens, Executive Director Irene O'Malley said.

ON AUG. 25 the Sentinel had a photo and an accompanying wire service story concerning the battleship USS New Jersey's port visit to Sasebo, Japan. The New Jersey was referred to in the edition we received as a 45,000-ton ship. This is not correct. All the Iowa-class battleships, of which the New Jersey is one, are listed as 58,000 dead weight tons (DWT) warships. Actually when combat loaded they weigh 59,365 DWTs.All four battleships -- the Iowa (BB-61), New Jersey (BB-62), Missouri (BB-63)

Investigators tracked down a copper thief Thursday after he asked scrap-yard employees if selling the stolen material was a misdemeanor or a felony, the Volusia County Sheriff's Office said. Raymond Clifton, 31, of DeLeon Springs is accused of stealing nearly a ton of copper from the electrical business he worked at and then selling it to a DeLand scrap yard, said Brandon Haught, spokesman for the Volusia County Sheriff's Office. "Workers at the scrap yard thought it odd when Clifton mentioned a recent news story about someone who had been arrested for selling stolen copper and then asked if the crime was a misdemeanor or felony offense," Haught said.

KISSIMMEE - A worker at Ewell Industries, 4850 E. U.S. Highway 192, was struck on the leg with a one-ton concrete block Tuesday afternoon, authorities said. The worker's name was withheld until his family could be notified. He was airlifted to Orlando Regional Medical Center. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating.

Joseph ''Jo-Jo'' Giorgianni, the quarter-ton rapist who was briefly spared a prison sentence because of his bulk, will be paroled in December because he is no longer a ''danger to society,'' the state parole board chief says.His release from prison in 1980 drew letters of outrage from around the nation that persisted until Superior Court Judge Richard Barlow reversed himself, reinstating the original 15-year sentence.Giorgianni, convicted along with Clarence Sindora of a 1978 sexual attack on a 14-year-old girl at Giorgianni's restaurant, was released from prison after spending about a week behind bars after his lawyers argued that his obesity would make prison life impossible for him.Giorgianni weighed 575 pounds at his conviction, and now weighs 450 pounds, his lawyers said.

A tractor pushed, a barge pulled and two sperm whales were hauled back to sea Wednesday after beaching themselves in western Tasmania. Sixty-one other whales from their pod died after the mass beaching. Two more were still stranded in shallow water, and wildlife officials said they would try to save them today. For the two 30-ton giants that were rescued Wednesday, wildlife officers brought in a four-wheel drive tractor with a grading blade covered in layers of sacking. While the tractor pushed from land, a barge pulled a rope attached to each whale's tail fluke.

Two young brothers were crushed by an antique 360-ton locomotive heading to the Steamtown National Historic Site as they tried to free an all-terrain vehicle stuck on the tracks. Anthony Paskert, 16, and his 12-year-old brother, Paul, were killed Sunday as the train brought 572 passengers back from an excursion to the nearby town of Moscow. The boys were riding two all-terrain vehicles in a fenced-off area. A nearby gate with a no-trespassing sign is frequently knocked down by people who like to ride off-road vehicles in the woods, officials said.

GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemalan authorities were searching Sunday for a half-ton of cocaine stolen from a police warehouse. Gunmen dressed as police raided the evidence-storage facility of the Anti-Narcotics Analysis and Information Service on Saturday, tying up guards and breaking locks.

About a ton of a poisonous liquid chemical leaked Sunday from a tanker anchored off Kobe in western Japan, but the spill was cleaned up in an hour, the Maritime Safety Agency said. No one was injured, said the agency. Styrene monomer, a toxic chemical used to make synthetic rubber, resins and plastics, leaked from a small hook-shaped crack on the tanker's hull below the water line.

Roughly 14 tons of unwanted prescription drugs were dropped off at locations throughout Florida at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's most recent take-back day, the federal agency reported Thursday. The DEA hosted its sixth national Prescription Drug Take-Back Day on Saturday, and roughly three tons were collected in the Orlando area. To date, Floridians have disposed of roughly 46 tons of unwanted or expired prescription drugs at the previous DEA events. "We continue to see an increase in the amounts of drugs collected from the community during these Take-Back events, and we applaud all Floridians who have taken these opportunities to safely dispose of their unused and unwanted medications.

The tricky job of moving a 175-ton electrical transformer tied up traffic on county roads 448 and 561 as deputy sheriffs, county crews and power company workers escorted the massive piece of equipment south to its destination near Clermont. The operation Friday began three days earlier when crews assembled and moved the transformer from a railroad car onto a flatbed with multiple tires. It made its way into traffic starting about 9 a.m., causing lengthy backups at different times.

A utility crew out to fix a water leak Wednesday morning in Poinciana stumbled on an unlikely — and labor-intensive — crime: 165 iron manhole covers had been stolen. The thefts occurred in Village 8, a relatively undeveloped area on the Polk County side of the sprawling development, which straddles Polk and Osceola counties. Village 8 has roads but only a few houses, which might explain how thieves were able to remove so many 80-pound manhole covers without being spotted. The covers, which weighed a total of 13,000 pounds, were not in the roads but rather between homes and on vacant lots, said Mary Rose Guidone, spokeswoman for the Toho Water Authority.

A U.S. Coast Guard cutter returned to Port Canaveral with more than a ton of marijuana it intercepted from a drug boat. The Confidence offloaded about 2,245 pounds of the contraband, which has an estimated worth of about $2 million. The crews of the Confidence and the Dauntless, another Coast Guard ship, intercepted a 30-foot boat suspected of smuggling drugs just south of Guantanamo Bay , Cuba, on Aug. 17. As a crew from the 210-foot Confidence pursued the suspected drug boat, the people aboard the boat jettisoned bales of what looked like contraband into the water, according to the Coast Guard.

Tucked beyond view from State Road 436 on the campus of the Seventh-day Adventist Forest Lake Academy is a large, old building where for more than 50 years the blankets, bed linens, baby clothes, and towels for area Florida Hospitals have been washed, dried and folded. For 33 of those years, Jim Skidmore worked in that hospital laundry, moving his way up from the washroom to assistant director. It was a career that consumed him. "He was one of those guys who, instead of blood, has soap in his veins," said Marvin Burske, director of the Florida Hospital Laundry.

Broward County sealed a deal Tuesday with garbage company Wheelebrator Technologies to dispose of garbage from residents in the unincorporated areas. After opening the garbage disposal contract to competition for the first time in 30 years, the county ultimately remained with the same company, but at a lower price. Wheelabrator is currently charging Broward $57 a ton, according to Bill Roberts, the company's vice president of operations. The new contract, which starts next July and runs five years, pays the company $42 a ton. Competitor Sun Bergeron offered $45.25 a ton. "[Broward]

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Turkish police have seized a ton of heroin in an armed raid in Istanbul, the city's governor said Wednesday, claiming it was the biggest ever haul of the drug in Europe. Turkey, bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria to the east, is on a key transit route for heroin coming from Afghanistan and other Asian countries to the affluent nations of Europe.

What's a fair price for corn silage? That question is difficult to answer due to the number of factors involved that are dynamic and biologically variable. Some factors include production costs; grain price; harvesting costs; costs of handling, hauling and storing forage; grain drying costs; fertility and organic matter value of stover; and forage quality (especially starch content and neutral detergent fiber digestibility). The amount of moisture also has a major influence on corn's feed value and needs to be considered to determine fair silage prices accurately.

Officials at Nemours Children's Hospital saw more than just the sun rise Tuesday morning. A crane hoisted a three-ton, 40-year-old tree to the fourth-floor roof of the hospital, which is still under construction and scheduled to open in October. The tree, a sand live oak, is the first living installment to the hospital's planned rooftop garden, which will feature 10,000 square feet of native greenery and serve as a rehabilitation center for the young patients. Workers already have constructed wheelchair-accessible ramps, walkways and carved-out areas where patients will be able to perform physical-therapy exercises generally done in a gym or exam room, said Nemours spokeswoman Yusila Ramirez.